


Another Level

by iimpavid



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Dark Tower - Stephen King, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Dark Tower (2017)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dimension Travel, Gen, Quantum Mechanics, Robots, Sci-Fi Western, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 11:54:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14831823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid
Summary: The Winter Soldier pays a visit to another level of the Tower.





	Another Level

The Soldier crawled ashore empty-handed into another world entirely. Of course, he would not learn this until later, until he stood and the spectators of another world’s distant past, taken aback by their unexpected guest, would exclaim and panic and finally explain.

But for now:

The timeline started in a fall of glass and a mouthful of muddy water. He kicked up from the bottom of the river; the Captain was cradled in his good arm every stroke dedicated to keeping his head above water. From the dark of the riverbed up into the impossible blue light above.

_The only way out is up._

He crawled hands and knees onto the muddy, overgrown riverbanks empty-handed. A seamless transition from mission to a brave new world between one heartbeat to the next while the lungfuls of water coughing up over his tongue turned from metallic and dead to loamy and living. He clambered to his feet, still heaving, spun to look back toward the river and his burden—

Only to see a wall. White square-foot tiles with white grout. Inset into it, a door of reinforced steel with a great valve in its center. Through the palm-sized pane of murky glass at eye level, there was only impossible blue light.

Murmuring.

There was mud caked into the seams of his hands and his clothes and gear were waterlogged. The floor (tile, white) was streaked with dozens of footsteps, bits of grass and detritus.

Eight spectators, civilians, and one uniformed body instructing, “Please, remain calm. The exhibit has malfunctioned—”

The body was too tall, at least seven feet, a hasty design from a pulp magazine some seventy-five years in the past, feet shaped like cones, eyes blank and flashing. The voice from its speaker-mouth intoned all too human-like, “Please, remain calm. The exhibit has malfunctioned and will be restored to proper working order shortly.”

The Soldier drew his gun, which he was certain would not fire after his dip in the Potomac, and fired at the robot anyway.

The round punched a clean hole through the uniformed robot’s head and lodged into a poster beside the door.

There were posters shouting from all the walls—

“ _Visit 1/12/14 on the Infamous Earth-199999!”_

_“See the Death of an Icon in Living Color!”_

_“A Fallen American Hero! Now Presented in Real Feel 5D!”_

— Illustrated with the shield, cracked. A silhouetted soldier over a man that lay dying. A ~~kraken~~ hydra reaching up from the deep to snare an eagle. Not very subtle stuff, truth be told. And now one of them was spattered with— not blood but black, thick oil.

The only way out is up. The voice was salient in the back of his mind and not his own.

Sound came back to the Soldier in a cinematic rush. First civilian screaming and now an alarm blatting out danger. The exit was labeled in bright green lights that approximated English characters enough that the audience made straight for it— only to freeze as he got there first and did not spare them a backward glance.

The hallway beyond the exit was carpeted in rich red fabric, the walls paneled with oiled wood boards and lit by strings of Edison bulbs. Along either side were more posters but for different events.

 _“North Central Positronics_ presents: _Ford’s Theater 4/14/1865!”_

_“Witness Earth-616’s Genoshan Holocaust!”_

_“Survive the Khmer Rouge in Real Time!”_

_“Dallas ’63 Newly Remastered!”_

Different times, different places, not quite on film— he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t a projection but if he was a projection that could shoot things, well, then these people had it coming for creating projections that could shoot things — all beside identical doorways labeled with strange figures burnt into the wood.

The alarm was muted here and the hall, as far as he could see in either direction, was empty.

_The only way out is up._

There came that feeling of drowning again.

He took inventory. The Sig-Sauer and Derringer were soaked. Better to rely on knives if it came down to a fight but with chemical weapons, he’d be hosed without the mask and its filtration.

A drone appeared on his right as if from the wall itself. He holstered the damp SIG with one hand and threw a knife with the other and with an electrical snap, the drone fell to the carpet. In three strides he knelt to retrieve the knife and lunged into another drone, dispatching it with the same efficiency. He kicked down doors as he went. Targets materialized through the walls as easily as dust through sunbeams but there was no doubting their solidity. They would barrel into him or he into them.

Their intelligence could not have amounted to much but they made up for this with enthusiasm and enormous crackling bolts of electricity like security netting forming between them.

_The only way out is up._

He found a stairwell at last and threw himself up it, limbs scrambling and graceless in spite or maybe because of a lifetime of training. There was no preparing a person for this— whatever this was.

When the staircase ran out there was another door and through that door, there were scientists or people dressed like scientists and in any case, it didn’t matter who they were. He shoved them aside without discretion. They knew no words that could snare him though judging from their tone they were trying.

He did not stop running when he emerged into daylight and rolling plains.

The miles and time disintegrated under the heaving insistence that he run farther than his legs would carry him. And after sundown, there were woods and quiet sounds. Nightbirds and the rasping, aching sound of his own breathing.

He stopped. A slow winding down of mechanisms as they forgot their purpose.

He stood among the trees, decidedly lost, far beyond his own depth. He took inventory.

On his person there were spare magazines for guns he was not certain would fire. Knives enough. Flint and steel. A suture kit and still-wrapped pressure bandage he did not yet need. His still-sodden boots and tac-gear.

There were no human sounds to be heard. More importantly, there were no mechanical sounds— no helicopters or whining drones or rattling gunfire or tinny traffic noises. A human could be silent as the grave but a human he could deal with.

The Soldier wandered, gathering wood and kindling as he went until he came to an apt, flat place among the trees and knelt to spark himself a fire.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little thing but if it generates any interest I might see if I can't figure out where to take it and how to get Bucky back home again.


End file.
